by Bobby Schultz
Are you tired of trying to shout in an increasingly noisy marketplace only for your voice to fall on deaf ears? If that’s the case, then we’ve got an article just for you!
In this piece, we’re going to share some hot tips on how to truly resonate with your target audience online. Are you ready?
1. Know your tribe
It might sound incredibly daft (and obvious), but the key to resonating with your audience lies in truly understanding them.
Be honest: how much do you really know about your target demographic? Do you have a perfect buyer persona in mind? Or are you generalising?
It might surprise you to learn that a huge percentage of marketers only really know the basics about their audience (e.g., name, gender, location).
Of course, if you really want to craft a message that hits home, you’ll need a little more data to go on than that!
2. Find your voice
This next step will be an awful lot easier once you’ve figured out exactly who your target audience is and what makes them tick.
Is a formal tone more appropriate? Are you speaking to a much younger generation? Are you selling ‘nerdy’ products that speak to online gamers or Sci-Fi fans? Is humour the key to their heart?
The more data you have on your audience, the far better positioned you’ll be to identify the perfect brand voice upon which to build your content marketing strategy.
3. Choose the ideal content format
While the quality of your content is of course a critical factor, it doesn’t matter how good it is if you aren’t leveraging the right formats. Does your audience resonate well with long-form blog posts? Would eBooks with plenty of on-brand imagery be more appropriate? Could a “how-to” video be more impactful than a listicle?
4. Offer real-life examples and use simpler language
Particularly if you are in a ‘jargon-heavy’ industry (e.g., an SEO agency in Sydney), make sure that you adopt simpler language where possible and offer real-life examples to help communicate your message and product value proposition.
For example, if you’re trying to highlight the immense importance of SEO for small businesses, you could use the popular analogy of: “SEO is like fitness for your business”.
5. Always ask for (and respond to) feedback
As your audience grows you should be frequently asking for feedback. Not only is this an effective way of gaining more social proof (which is handy for establishing trust and credibility), but it also enables you to engage with your audience in a meaningful way.
It’s easy to respond to every 5* review with a massive thank you and a “that means so much to us”; but there’s even more value in responding to the not-so-positive reviews and doing all you can to appease them. That way, you can also improve your products / services where possible and have demonstrative proof of your dedication to customer satisfaction.
Final thoughts: Remember, they’re people, just like you
Humanise your audience. Sure, when you are collecting and analysing massive amounts of data it’s easy to get caught up in the “buyer persona” and seeing them as numbers on a screen. However, if you truly want to be able to resonate with them, recognising your customers as people and doing everything in your power to deliver as much value as possible will go a long way to securing their loyalty. We’re simple creatures; don’t overcomplicate it.
